


Bad Life

by Lost_In_Translation (Liarian)



Category: Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Cannibalism, Car Accidents, Consentacles, Fluff and Angst, Homelessness, Other, Panic Attacks, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Tentacle Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:09:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 23
Words: 13,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22622314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liarian/pseuds/Lost_In_Translation
Summary: Ficlets written for #Symbruary grew something that resembles plot, but not much.
Relationships: Eddie Brock/Venom Symbiote
Comments: 51
Kudos: 148





	1. Human form

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Mala vida](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22622209) by [Liarian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liarian/pseuds/Liarian). 



There’s hardly a speck of its being, but that is all it needs to survive. The Other doesn’t sleep but lives in a constant state of lethargy. Curled up against the heart of its host, it lets itself be lost in the constant rhythm of the beats. It doesn’t remember who they are, his consciousness too small for such a huge concept. It only knows that it is safe. Time does not matter, the Other simply exists.

Eddie, the guest’s name is Eddie and the first time it remembers his name is like waking up after a long coma. The Other unscrews with care from Eddie’s heart and glides winding to the wonderful machine that is his brain. The Other gets excited by watching the bright pulses of Eddie’s thoughts.

It is not the first time it thinks about it, but there is something that is not right. Eddie’s brain used to live flooded in dopamine. Their sweet taste kept them happy. Now there is so little. It’s as if something in Eddie is dying and it isn’t able to find what. The Other seems to live in a permanent state of anxiety while Eddie goes out and there is nothing he can do. Too weak. Too pathetic.

Eddie’s mind has been fixed on an idea for hours. Dopamine levels are low. Leaning against the Golden Gate railing, his gaze is lost in infinity. It is the first time that the Other is afraid. Without much effort, Eddie crosses to the other side. Caught on the bridge’s clamp cables, he maintains balance. Only his will separates him from the abyss.

**“Eddie”** the Other groans pitifully after many months of silence, it’s voice barely a whisper. **“Eddie”** tries to shout over the traffic noise. No one seems to pay attention to them. **“Don’t leave us”**.

“Vee? Oh my God!” Eddie slips, clutching the bars curled up trying not to fall. He is crying. “Never. Never, Vee. I’m sorry.”

Its being wraps his hand in a black claw that keeps them safe.

**“Never, Eddie”** their filaments wrap them in a hug. The Other is barely able to hold them for a moment. Too weak yet. **“We are Venom.”**


	2. Food

His kidneys hurt when he finally wakes up on Anne and Dan’s awful couch. Maybe he shouldn’t have called them, but he didn’t know what else to do. He misses Vee’s viscous touch against his skin. He hasn’t yet believed that he’s still alive but remembering the jet black glow of Vee’s tentacles against the whitish skin of his stomach helps.

“Good morning,” Anne looks at him as if at any moment he could go nuts. “There are pancakes, if you want.”

For a moment, he hopes to hear Vee growling “Hunger, Eddie.”

“Thank you,” Eddie mutters, rising from the couch after being silent for a second longer than necessary. He hates that Anne looks at him that way, but he can’t judge her too hard counting how close he was to jumping from the Golden Gate.

The silence has a different weight when he can feel the slight tingling that bristles all the hair on his body. The sensation hasn’t disappeared at all since Vee kept them safe until they managed to jump back to the other side of the bridge. Sometimes he’s afraid of how much he has come to depend on Vee.

“I can’t even imagine what you’re going through” Anne tries to smile while serving the last batch of pancakes “but we’re here for you if”

“I know, Anne.” Eddie sighs trying to change the topic of conversation. “It was just a moment of weakness.”

“They need me in the office” Anne serves the pancakes and says goodbye with a kiss on Eddie’s cheek. “Call if you need anything. Do you hear me, Eddie? Anything.” She points at him with her finger before she slips into her coat and hangs up her purse. “Dan will be here in a couple of hours.”

“See you later, Anne!” He shouts when he hears the door slamming, while covering the pancakes in chocolate syrup.

He can’t help laughing when he sees a trembling tentacle escape from his arm and crawl to the plate.

“I have everything I need,” Eddie puts his wrist to his lips, ignoring his symbiote’s complaints when he can’t reach their breakfast.


	3. Family

His mind was just spinning over the message on his answering machine. He didn’t expect to hear the old man’s voice again. Things hadn’t finished too well between them.

**“Eddie, you feel guilty. Why?”** Vee’s voice rumbled in his head causing him to lose the thread of his thoughts.

“It’s complicated.” Eddie sighed, shinkring in himself and hiding his face behind the palms of his hands. “I hadn’t heard from Carl for years and I don’t know”

**"We can always eat him”** The ease with which Vee talked about devouring people still left him bewildered sometimes.

“I’d like it” Eddie laughed desperately and slumped against the back of the couch “but I don’t think he qualifies as a bad person.”

**“As you wish, Eddie”** Vee purred sliding just beneath his skin where Eddie could feel him as a light caress.

The car skidding around the corner too fast resounded across the street. Lying on his back, Eddie looked at the ceiling of his room in the midst of the most absolute darkness. He had been trying to sleep for hours but it was useless. Carl didn’t deserve his help but he wanted to think that in some sense he was better than his father.

He didn’t know who he was trying to fool. He was nothing more than a failure that razed everything good in his life.

**“We saved the world for you, Eddie.”** The filaments of viscous sludge ran through his skin slowly until he was wrapped in a hug. His entire belly and much of his thighs were nothing more than a mass of a bright and intense black. **“You don’t owe him anything.”**

“I shattered his life, Vee.” His hand caressed them distractedly. It was comforting to be able to feel his symbiote again against his skin. “And it’s just money.”

**“Whatever you say, Eddie.”** Vee growled sinking back into his body. Eddie tried to capture the tentacles that slipped away again under his skin.

“He’s still my father,” Eddie curled up in bed trying to get as small as possible. He hated when Vee sank to his gut where he could barely notice him. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

***

The Other curled up against Eddie’s heart, letting the beats plunge it into a state of lethargy in which rage didn’t exist. It was hard to assume that there were things that it couldn’t protect Eddie from. Carl seemed to be one of those things.

Their dopamine levels were again on the floor. It had been too close to losing Eddie last time. The Other knew Eddie’s taste when he felt guilty. Thinking about Annie was still dyed in that acid and somewhat unpleasant taste. Carl’s memories were bitter. When Eddie thought about Carl there was guilt but also anxiety and fear.

The Other had never wanted so much to notice someone’s skull explode against their teeth and feel the blood still hot bathing their tongue and stuck against the palate. It delighted in the idea of smelling how Carl pissed himself, panicking, imploring for his life, kneeling among the trash. No one who hurt them deserved anything else. The Other didn’t understand what made Carl so different but Eddie didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. His death could only mean more guilt that they didn’t need but no one had said they couldn’t scare him a little…


	4. Friendship

The Other had already seen four seasons of Friends while Eddie worked on his new case. From time to time, Eddie spoke out loud but the Other didn’t take long to realize that it was his way of ordering his thoughts.

"Do you think Drake's experiments may be continuing?" Eddie was just going through the list of names, all former Life Foundation workers. “What if there are more symbiotes, Vee?”

**“We killed Riot. We’ll do the same with the rest.”** The Other didn’t understand Eddie's concern.

"Someone seems very sure of himself" Eddie muttered before refocusing on the documents that filled the entire desk.

The Other was starting a new episode when Eddie's cell phone began to vibrate insistently against the desk wood.

"Hello Annie" Eddie picked up the phone while Phoebe got to the hospital. "Everything okay?"

The Other paid no attention to the conversation, more interested in the beings Phoebe was about to spawn.

"I just saw your message." Annie didn't seem happy at all. "Can you tell me what happened? We are talking about a lot of money.”

“Annie, I'll give it back to you. I don’t” Eddie was getting anxious. The Other knew because Eddie tasted bitter.

**"You don't want her to know that the money is for Carl."** The Other sank into Eddie. Noticing it under their skin always helped him calm down.

"Eddie," Anne inquired after too long in silence. “You are about to collect compensation for the Life Foundation fiasco. Why’s it so urgent?”

"Carl... Carl called" Eddie got up from his chair and began to walk around the apartment. The Other knew that it was one of his mechanisms to try to control his anxiety. “He’s going to be evicted and it’s my fault. After the accident, I owe it to him, Anne. You get it, right?”

"You were seventeen and he left you out on the streets, Eddie." The Other had never heard Anne so angry. “You don't owe him anything.”

**"Anne agrees with us."** The Other purred in satisfaction. The idea of tasting Carl Brock's brains was increasingly succulent. Anne was a good friend, maybe she could help.


	5. Romance

Eddie looked at the ring in the palm of his hand. The diamond sparkled reflecting the yellowish light of his room. Eddie remembered perfectly the day he had bought it, believing Annie was his past, his present and his future. It hadn’t been a year yet but it seemed to have happened in another life. Sometimes he wondered where he would be right now if Jack hadn't offered him the interview with Drake. Maybe the ring would still be on Anne's finger.

"Or we would all be dead" Eddie muttered, clenching his fist around the ring.

**"You regret finding us"** Vee's voice whispered cutting in his thoughts.

“What? No!” Eddie was startled. The ring slipped from his hands, falling with a slight jingle as it hit the ground. “Why”

**"You miss her"** Vee replied without giving him time to finish speaking. The jet filaments escaped from his shoulders forming the strange face of the symbiote. His opaline eyes stared at him.

Eddie sighed without knowing what he expected him to answer. They were one. Vee knew everything Eddie knew. He obviously missed Annie, as he missed his old life. There was something comforting in the simplicity of being normal. But normalcy no longer existed for Eddie. Being Venom had changed everything.

**"It's our normal, Eddie."** Vee replied annoyed. It was easy to identify the emotions of the symbiote when they resonated inside.

"I like our normal." Eddie reached out, stroking the viscous mass and delighted in Vee's pleasant purring. "Nothing I could have with Annie can compare to us, love."

Vee's face disappeared forming dozens of tentacles that wrapped them in a hug. With his mind completely blank, Eddie lost himself in the sensation of Vee against his skin. In those moments it was difficult to know where Eddie ended and where the symbiote began. No matter how strange his life was, everything was worth it for moments like that.

***

The Other knew that it was going to be a strange day, like most days when Eddie woke up with a bitter aftertaste of anxiety. Wrapped around their heart, the Other watched. It was Saturday and they had no plans but Eddie was still standing in front of the closet debating between two different shirts.

"Which one do you prefer, Vee?" He asked, frowning.

**"What's wrong with sweatshirts?"** Eddie only wore a shirt when they were going to eat with Annie and Dan.

"I guess nothing" Eddie shrugged, leaving the shirts on the bed still undone. Without much ceremony he wrapped himself in a black T-shirt and gray sweatshirt and left.

The morning was calm. Eddie buried his hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt trying to shrink in himself.

**“Eddie, you are nervous. Why?”** The Other let some black tentacles form under Eddie’s clothes when they had been silent for a long time.

"I don't know!" Eddie snorted trying not to make a fuss with his hands in the middle of the street. "It's silly."

**"Eddie, we have no secrets"** it growled at the lack of response. The symbiote sank again, breaking the hug.

"But you have no idea where we’re going." Eddie's anxiety broke out in a fit of rage. "I just wanted to buy a stupid ring!" Eddie realized too late that he was screaming in the middle of the street. "Shit." He said avoiding people's eyes.

**"Like Annie's?"** The Other whispered without knowing what that meant.

Eddie sat on a bench, defeated.

"No, not like Annie's." Eddie tried to get distracted by fiddling with the sleeves of the sweatshirt. "It's not like we're going to get married but... I told you it was silly" the man laughed without humor.

**"We're not silly, Eddie"** Vee purred cheerfully, letting its tentacles wrap them in a hug.

“I know. I love you, Vee”.


	6. Clothes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And we get back to angst :)

Eddie was convinced it was a lost cause but twenty-four hours later the money was in his account. Now he only needed to call. Eddie sighed trying to control the trembling in his hands. After so many years the old man still had the same number. Time seemed to lengthen infinitely at each tone. Maybe his father wouldn’t pick up the phone and Eddie could forget him forever. Just one more tone for the call to end on the answering machine. **  
**

“Brock speaking” His father’s voice sounded tired on the other side of the phone. For a second Eddie was silent without knowing what to say. “Hello?” the old man insisted.

“Father? I’m Eddie” he felt nerves collecting in his stomach. Vee had been in absolute silence since he had decided to make that call. “I have the money”

“The bank wants it deposited tomorrow” Carl interrupted, not caring that Eddie hadn’t finished speaking. “I suppose you’ve already made the transfer.”

“No” he replied with something that nearly resembled nonchalance. “No, I haven’t.”

“And what are you waiting for? Are you so retard that you’ve already forgotten

Retard, dumbfuck, useless… Too many words came to mind when he heard his father use the only tone with which he had always addressed him. For a second, Eddie tuned out from the conversation. The contempt could be felt in each of his father’s words. For a moment, it was like being twelve again, with his arm hanging in a strange position, tears slipping down his cheeks. Or like that time Carl had found the cat hidden under the bed. The finger-shaped bruises around the neck had taken weeks to fade out.

 **“Eddie”** Vee took him out of that spiral before it could get worse. He didn’t know when it had happened but his hands, his arms, his chest, his entire body was wrapped in black and viscous mass protecting him as armor.

“I have a check ready.” He wasn’t able to understand how his voice managed to come out from his throat. “But if I’m doing you this favor, I want you to ask for the money looking at my face.”

Carl growled in response. Eddie was sure he was going to crumble as soon as he hung up the phone. Maybe Vee was right and he shouldn’t have made that call.

***

It had been a hard night for both of them. Eddie had fallen asleep feeling a slight sense of anger that wasn’t his. Slumber had taken too long to come by and the little sleep he had managed hadn’t been restful. Every time he woke up, the strange feeling was still there like an annoying rumor that drove him out of his mind.

He felt completely shattered when the alarm finally rang. Eddie groaned, rubbing his choked eyes. He didn’t want to imagine what he should look like.

“Vee?” He asked quietly. He couldn’t stop looking at his hands, still covered in the black silt.

 **“Are you alright, Eddie?”** The viscous mass began to fray around his shoulders, the filaments forming Vee’s face. The symbiote looked at him with his huge opaline eyes.

“You didn’t have to” there wasn’t a single inch of Eddie that wasn’t covered by Vee, except his face. “Have you been out all night?”

 **“You needed us”** Ve showed his sharp teeth with a predatory smile on his face.

“Yeah” Eddie laughed desperately without believing he deserved the absolute affection of that being. “I’m sorry you have to settle for a loser.”

 **“If you weren’t a loser, you wouldn’t be Eddie. We wouldn’t be Venom”** the symbiote crouched against his neck. The huge whitish eyes kept looking at him.

Eddie checked for the fourth time that the check was well kept in his wallet. Why had he insisted on going personally to hand the damn check to his father? If he continued procrastinating he wouldn’t get there on time. Maybe it would have been better to do the damn transfer and forget about Carl forever. He didn’t know who he was trying to fool, but in some corner, the boy he had been was still desperate for his father’s approval. Eddie knew how cruel the streets could be. The last thing he needed was to worry about Carl.

 **“If we ate him, we wouldn’t have to worry anymore.”** Vee purred, satisfied with his reasoning.

“We’re not going to eat Carl!” He growled in exasperation. Eddie didn’t need to have that discussion with Vee again.

 **“Pussy”** the symbiote muttered.

“Whatever you say” he sighed defeated, missing the sight of the jet glowing in that strange hand that wasn’t Eddie nor the symbiote, but something else. Eddie slammed the door behind him and went down the stairs two at a time. At each step he felt smaller but there was no going back.

***

Eddie was convinced that he would never step on that neighborhood again, but there he was. The house in which he had grown was visible at the end of the street, almost like a mausoleum of his former glory. The check weighed in his pocket and he had never wanted so much to shout “mask” and just be Venom. Eddie was the pathetic human who felt irrational terror.

 **“Eddie, you and I don’t exist. Just us”** The filaments began to form around them, dyeing the clothes in the bright black so characteristic of the symbiote. His jeans, his boots, even the socks looked like vinyl. The last were his hands. Eddie couldn’t help but put his palm to his lips and leave a faint kiss there. Maybe for once Carl’s words couldn’t tear him down when something as extraordinary as Vee thought Eddie was worth it. 


	7. Free Day

Eddie didn't know what to expect when Carl finally opened the door. The man barely looked like a shadow of the image engraved in his memories. It was as if time had consumed him, leaving only a living corpse. His eyes had a sickly yellowish tone and seemed to have sunk into his shrivelled up face.

Eddie took a deep breath, trying to sort his thoughts. There was something comforting about being able to feel Vee against his skin. No matter what happened, he knew he wasn’t alone.

**"Never, Eddie"** Vee purred, the sound making Eddie’s last traces of anxiety disappear.

"You've come" Carl opened the entrance door with a grimace of disgust drawn on his face.

"Can I come in?" Eddie mused, shoving his hands in his pockets.

"This isn’t your home" Carl spat sharply.

"But I'm going to pay for it." Eddie raised his face, looking at the man for the first time. "I could let the bank keep it."

"You owe me." Carl went into Eddie’s personal space, pointing his finger at him. "Or would you have preferred me to let you rot in jail?"

Eddie stepped back, stumbling with the step. He looked at his hands, covered in blood. There was so much blood. The kid had come out of nowhere and he had no time to stop the car. His throat felt raw, after screaming so much for someone to help them.

**“Eddie, breathe. It’s just a memory.”** The scarlet color began to blend with Vee's bright black until it finally disappeared. Eddie traced the shape of his fingers, cold to the touch. The white streaks made them look like polished marble. It was beautiful.

“You are nothing more than a parasite that lives razing the lives of those around you. You left us with nothing” his father was still rambling.

**"Don't call us a parasite"** Vee's voice rumbled in the silence of the morning. Dozens of tentacles surrounded Eddie and a huge row of teeth devoured him until he disappeared completely.

"Vee!" He tried to shout in his head “You promised me! Vee!" The feeling of being nothing more than a passenger in his own body was still strange but it was the first time he was scared of it.

**"He was just a kid and he was afraid."** Vee grabbed Carl by the neck and lifted him like a rag doll. The man tried desperately to keep his feet on the ground but it was useless. When they were Venom, their strength was superhuman.  **"You broke his nose against the dining room table."**

Venom crossed the threshold and closed the door behind him. Eddie was in shock, unable to pay attention to anything around him. The wrath of the symbiote was dragging him into the abyss. Venom dropped Carl into one of the dining room chairs and without any remorse he stamped Carl’s face against the ebony table.

**"Fun, right?"** Venom smiled, showing all his teeth.

Blood slipped down his nose soaking Carl's face and leaving a small puddle in the dark wood.

"Oh My God!" The man pleaded peeing himself. “Please… I don't”

Eddie kept screaming desperately. He was sure that as soon as Vee returned him the control of his body he was going to throw up. Eddie had spent more than half his life trying to bury his memories of that day into oblivion.

**"Eddie doesn't want us to hurt you."** Vee licked Carl's cheek with his sharp tongue, enjoying the feelings of disgust and terror that were reflected on the man's face.  **“Next time you won’t be so lucky.”**

Eddie was trembling when Vee finally sank into his gut. He was too anxious to look at his father’s face. Almost on autopilot, he took the check out of his wallet and left it a few inches from the pool of blood on the table. Carl was startled when he heard the palm of Eddie’s hand hitting hard against the wood.

“With this we are even.” Eddie said nothing more before turning his back on the man for the last time.


	8. Alien Biology

The day had been a clusterfuck but they were finally home. The Other was still hugging Eddie's heart, in a state as close to sleeping as the symbiote knew. Hearing the word parasite on Carl's lips had made it so angry that now it felt exhausted in a way it didn't know was possible.

**"Eddie, we're hungry."** It growled when the sensation became so unbearable that it seemed to overwhelm the Other completely.

Eddie didn’t answer.

The sound of water hitting the tiles resonated throughout the bathroom. It didn't know how long Eddie had been there but the drops stinged as they hit the reddened skin of his back. The Other repaired the skin without much effort and turned off the tap. The steam had clouded the mirror and the water had condensed soaking up even the farthest tiles.

**"Eddiiiiiie, we’re hungry"** it whined pitifully.  **“We want dark chocolate with peanuts.”**

The Other took its serpentine form. Its huge opaline eyes watched Eddie's chest move to the rhythm of his breathing. The man was curled up on himself and his sight lost in the infinite.

**"Eddie?"** it murmured scared.  **“Eddie, we kept our promise. We've only broken his nose.”** The Other curled up against his shoulder.  **"He’ll get well"** .

Inch to inch, the Other was covering Eddie's body in its viscous mass. Hunger resonated with increasing intensity. Other times, being able to see and feel it against his skin had helped when anxiety managed to overcome Eddie.

**"Eddie?"** The Other kept waiting for an answer but nothing seemed to get Eddie out of his trance. It blamed the hunger for not having noticed before, but the anxiety aftertaste that had been with them all day had weared off.

It was as if Eddie had never been there.

**"Eddie, please"** he pleaded in anguish without daring to take control of Eddie's body again. The Other had felt Eddie's terror, but nothing was more important than making Carl Brock pay. For a moment it had lost itself in such an absolute way in the anger that it had lost sight of the world while Eddie crumbled locked in Venom's body.

They were too hungry. Their phenylethylamine levels were too low. Eddie's skin seemed to burn against the cold touch of its tentacles. It needed to help Eddie but they were so hungry. The kidneys seemed to be calling it and it was unable to remember why it shouldn’t eat its host's organs. The Other clung to the right kidney, its viscous mass absorbing nutrients. Eddie's phone rested on the sink. The Other lengthened one of its tentacles and made an effort to reach Annie's contact.

"Hi?" Annie's voice felt far away.

**"Help"** the Other shouted desperately.

“Venom? What happened?” he words didn't seem to make sense.

**"Hungry"** the Other groaned. They were too hungry to think about anything else.

“Venom? Where is Eddie?” The voice on the other side of the phone kept talking but the Other had sunk back into its host like a black, viscous mass circling all his organs and giving itself a feast.


	9. Sharing a body

Eddie barely remembered going home, much less getting into the bathtub or why was he in the hospital. The term Dan had used had been multi-organ failure due to possible viral infection. At least that was the official version. The unofficial version was that Vee had eaten part of his lungs, liver and kidneys and was beginning to take good account of the heart when Dan found them.

From what Anne had told him, it was Vee who had called them. That had been a very entertaining conversation bearing in mind that Eddie had never confirmed that Venom was back.

Eddie had been trying to entice Vee with a small square of dark chocolate. For a while it had worked, for a reason it was the symbiote's favorite. Eddie tried to make some black filament get out of his skin again with an ounce of chocolate but it seemed useless.

"Vee, I'm fine." Eddie sighed, bringing the square to his mouth. "I should have paid more attention but sometimes accidents happen."

Eddie lay back down trying to find a more comfortable position in bed. The IV bothered him. He was tired of noticing the needle sticking in his arm every time he moved. At least he no longer drowned every time he tried to breathe. He missed Vee but the symbiote seemed determined to go unnoticed.

“Do you need me to beg? Is that it? ”Eddie growled in frustration. He was tired of the hospital, the bland walls and the beep of the machines. Eddie took another bite of the chocolate. He just wanted to go home and sleep sixteen hours straight.

***

Time seemed to pass at a strange pace in the hospital room. The minutes turned into hours and the hours became eternal. Not even the coming and going of the healthcare staff helped him not get bored.

"How are you?" He didn't know how much time had passed when Dan's face peeked out smiling.

"Good?" Eddie wasn't sure what Dan expected him to answer. He was convinced that if he had a MRI done right now, he would have the heart of a twenty-year-old boy. “Half an hour ago, Vee finished with the lungs and the kidneys work again.”

"Eddie, have you considered seeing a psychologist?" Dan walked over to the bed, hiding his hands in the pockets of his white coat.

"No" Eddie replied bluntly and stood up, trying to keep his distance with the doctor. “I’m all right. It has only been an accident. We are fine, Dan. Are you going to discharge us?”

Dan stared at him with a strange expression on his face before putting on the bland face he used with his patients.

"Have you had dissociative episodes before?" Dan watched his pupils with a small flashlight.

"What?" Eddie was starting to feel like a cornered animal. "There's nothing wrong with us, Dan! I hadn't had an episode for many years. I know how to handle them.”

“And Venom? Does he also know how to handle them?” Dan kept insisting.

"Don't get Vee into this!" Eddie got up, completely forgetting the IV in his arm. "Fuck!" He shouted when he felt the pain when the needle tore his flesh. Blood began to sprout in a deep and thick crimson. "Fuck," he mused, pressing on the wound. As a reflex act, Vee's jet black covered the wound and made it disappear as if it had never been there.

Why wasn’t Vee speaking to him? Wasn't he the one who had told him that only "them" existed? All Eddie wanted was to cry and fall apart in the solitude of his apartment where no one could judge him.

"Thanks for everything, Dan." Eddie rummaged through one of the drawers and found one of his old jeans and his gray sweatshirt.

"Eddie, we're here to help you." Dan continued insisting while Eddie got dressed. "You don't have to face it alone."

"I'm never alone." Eddie laid his hand on the doctor's shoulder before leaving the room. "Say hi to Annie."


	10. It was supposed to be "sharing a brain" but something else has come out

He had six missed calls from Anne and at least two more from Dan in the last ten minutes but Eddie didn't feel too guilty for ignoring them. He didn't intend to kill himself, at least not while Vee was still inside his body, and he didn't need to hear how many things didn't work as they should in his head.

The only being he wanted to talk to shared his own brain but preferred to remain mute. Eddie opened the closet searching through the shirts for the short-sleeved white t-shirt that fitted his arms and made his tribal tattoos stand out.

"You could have gone hunting, it's not that different from when I'm asleep" Eddie said without waiting for an answer. As much as he thought about it, he still couldn't understand why Vee left himself to get that hungry.

The t-shirt was somewhat narrower than he remembered but it still fit and with the leather jacket on top, it didn’t matter that it might be somewhat shorter than he would have liked. Looking at himself in the mirror, while combing his hair, he kept thinking that he was being crazy but he couldn’t stand the silence in his head anymore.

The 500cc engine roared in the silence of the night. Eddie didn't bother putting on his helmet. The streets were quiet at that time of the early morning. His military boots stepped on the accelerator until the street lamps were nothing more than lines of light on the horizon. It had been a long time since he had gone out at night but he still knew where some of the best clubs were and it wasn’t too difficult to get some coke knowing who to ask. In the past it had served to silence his demons when being locked in his head became unbearable.

Eddie was still able to sell his bad boy look, the silver chain hanging from the pocket of his dark pants. Eddie left behind clubs with rows of people waiting to get in. It was as if someone had raised the volume to the world, people screamed and laughed. Eddie parked the motorcycle with a last roar of the engine before shutting it down and getting off, hands in the pockets of his jacket and a predatory smile on his lips.

The music reverberated even from the street and Eddie felt his stomach churn. He was sure that this feeling wasn’t his but if Vee had something against it, he could try to use words. Inside, the club was dark and the flash of the lights gave it a psychedelic look. Eddie walked over to the bar, too sober for his taste, and he asked for a vodka with lime. It didn't take long to order the second one. Without paying attention around him, he lost himself in the tide of people around him. The rhythm was stuck preventing him from thinking. Before he could realize it, he was dancing with a group of girls, all of them smiling and taking turns to get his attention. Eddie had fun kissing them on the neck and making them laugh when he let them check if the abs were real.

"I had never been with a married guy" the girl laughed moaning. Eddie drowned the sound with his lips. The last thing he needed was to think of Vee as he fucked a total stranger against the door of the club toilets. Maybe it was the color of her eyes, but the girl reminded him of Annie.

“If you want, we can get away” the girl smiled as she pulled up her panties and put on her skirt.

Eddie froze for a moment without understanding what he was doing. He just wanted to relax and forget but he could only think of Vee. Shame gripped his stomach. Vee wasn't even human. Why did he feel like he was cheating on him?

"I have to go," Eddie fled needing to feel the cold night air against his cheeks.

  
  


He had no idea what time it was when he found himself lying on a park bench. He raised his arm and stretched his fingers, looking at the stars through them and wondering what the hell he was doing. The wedding ring sparkled on his finger. Eddie covered his eyes with his hands trying to hide the tears.

"I'm pathetic, Vee." His voice was broken. "I guess you've finally noticed."

Two small filaments escaped from his middle finger hugging the white gold ring. Between sobs, Eddie pressed his fingers against his lips.


	11. Chapter 11

The Other had soon learned what anger was. It had savored uncontrol, force and violence. Anger was a red feeling that pushed them to be. It had enjoyed seeing the terror in their victims' eyes when anger dragged them like a wave crashing against the rocks.

The terror was cold and bereaved. It was death. It was to be completely alone where they should be two. Fear was not a new sensation for the symbiote but it had never known what was to be terrified of itself. The Other had failed in what mattered most to it and Eddie paid the consequences.

Every request from Eddie made it feel smaller and smaller until it was no more than a lost shadow between the liver and the kidneys of its host. Terror. It was what kept it locked deep inside Eddie's body, where he could barely notice. Maybe if it was nothing more than a harmless spawn, Eddie would forget the terror.

The Other watched, the first rays of dawn creeping through the blinds of the room. The night had been convulsed and too strange. Eddie's flavors were bitter and too intense at times or faded into a murky tangle. Its instincts shouted at it to wrap him in the black and viscous mass of its being but the terror had succeeded in desecrating the sanctuary that they were. Eddie dropped exhausted on the bed without bothering to take off his clothes. The sheets smelled of stale sweat and tobacco. The images of the night before repeated in an infinite circle on Eddie’s mind. It all ended in the girl in the toilets and what the Other thought about it.

**"Eddie, we don't understand"** the Other broke its self-imposed silence in a hesitant voice. The nervousness was still there but the Other dared to form some filaments in Eddie's wrist and intertwine in his fingers.

"Vee?" Hearing the disbelief in Eddie's voice was almost painful. "Oh! My God, Vee." Eddie laughed hysterically. “What do you not understand?”

Eddie sat on the bed while looking at them for a moment, smiling every time one of the tentacles curled into one of his fingers.

**“The girl in the toilet. For a moment your brain seemed to have balanced itself and then”**

"Well, right..." Eddie fiddled with the jet filaments between his fingers. “Last night I wasn’t at my best. It’s a very stupid way to put at risk the best thing I have in my life.”

**"Are we still?"** It couldn't help manifesting itself as a little black silt snake, its whitish eyes rapt with the blush on his host's cheeks.

"I don't know what you think happened, but my episode." Eddie stared at it. "It wasn't your fault."

**"We noticed your terror"** The Other replied ashamed, hiding again under Eddie's skin.

"It wasn't your fault, Vee. We all make mistakes." The Other noticed Eddie's internal struggle to find the words he was looking for. “Next time, talk to me. We are together in this.”


	12. Chapter 12

Vee purred on his chest as Eddie stroked him distractedly. They were alone, enjoying themselves in the peace that reigned between them. The stress of the last few days seemed far away.

 **“Eddie, hungry”** Vee grumbled without moving a speck of his being, basking in Eddie’s attention.

“Why doesn’t it surprise me?” Eddie laughed, reaching for the chocolate on his bedside table. After the last scare he always had a huge amount of dark chocolate on hand.

Vee took his serpentine form, his huge opaline eyes following the intense smell of chocolate and opening a mouth full of sharp teeth. Any other person would have described the picture like something out of a Lovecraft story, but the only thing that came to mind was cute.

 **“We aren’t cute!”** Vee growled devouring the chocolate in a single bite and becoming a shapeless mass again.

“Whatever you say, Vee.” Eddie shook his head in exasperation and took another bar from his stash, broke an ounce and nibbled it. At least one of them was able to enjoy the bitter taste of chocolate melting against their tongue.

Vee kept groaning, outraged with the ignominious qualifier. Eddie tried not to laugh, while Vee flooded his mind with images of them as Venom, their body and the huge jaw capable of pulling a human head from curd and shattering it in seconds.

“It’s not what I’m seeing right now.” Eddie put his lips against the shapeless mass that waved over his chest.

 **“We’re not cute”** Vee whispered. A tentacle pulled apart from the rest of the body, wrapping around Eddie’s wrist.

“Okay, okay.” Eddie raised his hands in surrender. “I didn’t want to offend.”


	13. Chapter 13

After months in the most complete ostracism, Jack had called to offer them his position again, whatever that meant and, overnight, the mornings in which Eddie didn’t get out of bed before noon had almost disappeared. The Other didn’t understand why they had to get up every morning with that horrible whistle but the orderliness seemed to be beneficial to his host.

Everything seemed to be going well.

The Other was a passive observer when the receptionist girl blushed when she saw Eddie smile. The Other knew Eddie was a sociable being, it had seen it in Maria’s memories but it was strange to taste endorphins every time a co-worker slapped Eddie on the shoulder. The Other had become addicted to the sweet taste of an Eddie proud of himself.

Everything seemed to be going well.

Perhaps that was why the nightmare had caught it off guard. When it had realized, Venom was awake, his claws had pierced the mattress and split the bed base.

**“Eddie, wake up”** The Other freed its host but kept hugging him, its tentacles circling his chest. Still asleep, tears ran down Eddie’s cheeks and his body trembled. The Other had nothing but disjointed fragments of the dream that tormented them but the anxiety was very real. The bitter taste almost caused them to retch. The Other noticed the taste of Carl’s brain between its jaw, warm blood slipping down his chin.

**“Eddie, wake up”** the Other pleaded sinking into his gut, afraid that feeling its viscous mass against the skin was only sinking him further into his subconscious.

Eddie woke up suddenly, the taste of blood still intense against his tongue and he couldn’t help his stomach from turning.

“Oh! God” Eddie got up, trying to get to the toilet before throwing up what was left of his dinner.

Exhausted, Eddie reached out to pull the chain and sat there with his head resting on the bowl.

“I-it was just a dream” Eddie told himself trying to control his pulse. “I-it was just a dream. Why did it feel so real?” Its host seemed to have run out of tears but his whole body was still shaking.

The Other just wanted to wrap them in its body and protect them from everything that wanted to harm them, but it was difficult when their enemy was Eddie’s brain.

“Vee, do you think you could?” The Other had never heard Eddie so unsure of himself. “Hold me, please.”

A dozen jet filaments began to emerge from every corner of Eddie’s body, wrapping him with almost reverential care. **“Whatever you need, Eddie.”**


	14. Chapter 14

“Vee! Stop this nonsense! ”Eddie tried to get out of bed but his body weighed as if it were full of cement. “Vee! You will make us be late!” He was barely able to move his fingers.

 **“Let’s talk”** Vee’s face formed, his huge eyes stared at him and his tongue slipped dripping down his tank top.

“Not now, Vee,” Eddie grumbled.

 **“No,”** Ve growled. **“Right now”.**

Eddie looked at the clock on his bedside table. He hadn’t been able to deliver anything for that week’s issue and he didn’t want Jack to have any more reasons to get rid of him. His name still had a certain reputation that didn’t make things easier. He couldn’t afford to be late again.

“Don’t blame me when I can’t pay rent” Eddie grumbled. Vee gave back control of his body. “I don’t know what you expect me to say, it was just a nightmare.”

 **“Why are you trying to lie to us?”** Vee’s face was only a few inches away, Eddie was convinced that he had grown a second row of teeth.

“I’m not lying! It was just a nightmare! The last months have been stressful. Sooner or later it was going to happen. And at least I’m able to function as a person most of the time.”

He didn’t expect Vee to understand. Eddie remembered what it was like to try to function without the shot that kept his demons away and the long months of recovery, meetings and counselors who said they could understand him.

 **“You don’t let us understand!”** Vee’s tentacles chained him tightly, leaving him immobilized against the bed.

“There’s nothing to understand.” Eddie turned his face away feeling tremendously small. Anyone would have been better than a depressive loser.

 **“Anyone!”** Vee roared enraged. **“You are ours, Eddie”** the symbiote licked his cheek, saliva soaking his face. Something wasn’t right. Vee froze, attention focused on the noise coming from the hall.

Eddie heard the dry knock against the door as he felt his whole being plunge into Venom’s body.

“Go, go, go, go!” the screams came from the other side of the wall. The noise of footsteps echoed in the dining room. Eddie was convinced that the almost imperceptible click had been the assault rifles getting ready to fire.

The first shots went through the door of the room and stuck against the wall. Venom roared as he noticed the bullets bouncing against his jet skin. It was like being home again, Carl begging for his life. In Vee’s thoughts there was only room for an idea. Those men were trying to hurt Eddie. Venom came out to meet them, his arms lengthening into infinite tentacles that caught his attackers off guard. Eddie could count a dozen. The first man crashed against the wall, falling unconscious to the floor. The screams grew and the bullet shells flooded the parquet floor.

Venom pounced on another of the assailants, with his jaws open, his teeth breaking bone and the taste of thick blood against his tongue.

“Vee! Don’t!” Eddie tried to get Vee out of his trance. The bullets kept on nibbling their skin as Venom delighted in the viscera of the corpse between their claws. “They are cops. We don’t eat cops!”

 **“They have attacked us in our home. They aren’t good people.”** Venom turned, knocking down another man under his weight. Eddie could smell the fear. Vee’s tongue, so strange, dripped bloody saliva and the teeth looked like something out of a nightmare, shining in crimson red. The creaking of the bones cracking under the pressure of Venom’s jaws echoed in Eddie’s head.

Venom was still gloating when an intense and deep beep ran through them, making them stagger.

"Vee! Are you alright? Vee!” Eddie shouted at Venom trying to get an answer. The symbiote was barely able to articulate complex thoughts, seized by pain. Almost as an automatic response, Venom ran through the window and dropped into the void.

The screams could be heard wherever they went. Whoever they were, they knew who and what Eddie was. They knew who Venom was.


	15. Chapter 15

Anne let the keys clink against the hall's ashtray. It had been a long day at the prosecutor's office. She was sure that at least they would be able to delay the execution of the sentence but the appeal had been rejected. With a sigh, she took off his shoes, leaving the heels perfectly aligned in the closet. The eviction carried on, leaving families with small children on the streets.

The dining room was still dim when the figure sitting completely motionless in her kitchen caught her by surprise. The hood of a rusty sweatshirt covered its face but even backlit she was still able to recognize her former fiance's demeanor.

"Don't scare me like that!" Anne turned on the dining room light. Eddie looked awful. Dark circles shaded his eyes and his greasy hair was glued against his forehead. "We were worried" Anne put the water to heat and took her favorite cup out of the cabinet, trying to keep calm by holding on to her little daily rituals. She was sure the dark spots on Eddie’s sweatshirt were dried blood.

"Eddie," he whispered when he realized that the man seemed to be very far away.

"We need to disappear for a while," Eddie's voice seemed devoid of any emotion. “They knew who we were. They were prepared against Vee.”

For a moment, Anne didn't understand what Eddie was telling her.

“Did they know? Who?” The kettle began to whistle but she paid no attention. The cup was left on top of the countertop.

"I don't know, Anne, but it's not safe to be close to us." Eddie got up. "Could you terminate my rental contract?"

"What are you thinking?" Anne forced him to sit back on the stool behind the breakfast bar. “What do you think you're going to do alone?”

**"We're not alone!"** Venom roared indignantly. It was still very odd to see Venom's face materialize from nowhere.

"Vee!" Eddie tried to push the symbiote's face into his sweatshirt. "You know what she means." The man turned directly to Anne, ignoring for a moment Venom, who seemed determined not to disappear under the skin of his host. “They attacked us at home, in broad daylight. We won’t risk you being harmed. Anne, please” he pleaded.

"You're going to do what you want, no matter what I think" Anne sighed defeated, dropping on the stool next to Eddie.

***

It was strange to think about how life was leading him to these situations. Eddie had more money than he had ever dreamed of being able to win and yet, with his account locked, unable to return to his apartment and having renounced his last links with his former life, he was again trying to survive on the streets. At least this time he wasn't alone. Vee purred under his epidermis.

"Well, we don't have to worry about being fired anymore" he sighed. Eddie was with his head down, his sweatshirt hiding his face and hands in his pockets. “How are you, Vee?”

**"We're fine, Eddie"** Vee replied in a thought. Eddie felt the cold touch of the symbiote's filaments surrounding him under his clothes.  **"We don't like having to run away."**

"They caught us off guard." Eddie kicked a can lying in the middle of the sidewalk. "It won't happen again." Eddie noticed the predatory smile even without seeing his symbiote's face. “Hey, Vee... What do you think of New York?”


	16. Chapter 16

Eddie enjoyed the sensation of the icy wind cutting his cheeks, leaving miles of asphalt behind. He would miss his motorcycle once they arrived in L.A., but the two hundred dollars in his pocket weren’t going to be enough to pay for the fuel. At least, selling it, he hoped he could get three thousand dollars.

**"But you love it"** Vee grumbled, cutting his line of thought.

"We need the money" Eddie shouted over the roaring engine noise as he zigzagged between the cars.

**"Money is stupid."** Vee seemed restless. Eddie could feel a chill every time the symbiote slid very close to the outermost layers of the skin causing his body's hair to bristle.

"I'm not going to discuss it with you," Eddie laughed remembering the arguments with his professor in economic policy “but we still need it if we want to get to New York.”

"We can do whatever we want Eddie, it doesn't have to be New York" Eddie missed noticing Vee directly against his skin but he was afraid that someone could realize that the black mass that sometimes stained his skin was alive.

"The other option is to live as hermits in the middle of the forest." Eddie stepped on the gas. “No chocolate and no television.”

**"What!? No! Chocolate, Eddie. We need our chocolate.”** Vee protested alarmed.

"I know, honey" Eddie sighed, thinking of the uncertainty that awaited them at the end of the journey. "And I don't mind losing the bike if that helps keep us safe."

***

The highway went by peacefully through miles and miles of a plain that seemed eternal. The vineyards looked like painted on the sandstone color of the earth on the other side of the road. The Other basked in the sublime monotony of engine noise and the constant throbbing of its host's heart and tried not to become obsessed with the remorse that slowly ate it.

Eddie's flavors confused it. They were sweeter and fresher that it had tasted them before but with a bitter aftertaste that spoke of nervousness. It was as if he was trying to hide his true thoughts behind a wall of enthusiasm. They had recently left Modesto's sign behind when Eddie parked the motorcycle between two trailers and stopped for lunch. The streets were wide but lacking any trace of life. Many of the premises looked abandoned long ago.

The roadside restaurant tables were occupied by lonely men, lost in their cups of coffee and distracted on the screens of their mobile phones. The whole place smelled like fried food and cheap coffee. Eddie sat down at the only free table and took the menu reading it without paying much attention.

“Chocolate milkshake? Pancakes, bacon and scrambled eggs?" Eddie whispered. "Is it okay with you, Vee?”

**"And French fries"** the Other slipped outward, materializing some filaments around its host's wrists.

"And fries, okay" Eddie looked exasperated before pulling a small notebook from his backpack with everything they had taken from San Francisco and continued transcribing phone numbers from his cell phone.

**"We're sorry, Eddie."** The Other extended one of the tentacles to form a claw that completely covered its host's hand. It couldn't help thinking that it was its fault that they had to leave behind everything they cared about.

"Don't be sorry" Eddie sighed. "If it wasn't for you, I'd be rotting at the bottom of San Francisco Bay. What matters to me is still here with me.”

The Other couldn’t help purring in the soft taste of his host's words.

"Have you decided?" The waitress interrupted them, pulling a small notebook from the front pocket of her uniform.

Eddie startled, hiding his right hand under the table. Anxiety diluted the sweet flavors that were running through him until then. The Other sank again, curling around Eddie's stomach. The bitter taste of nervousness became less intense as it sank deeper.

"Sorry… Yeah" Eddie took the menu again and drew a strained smile. The woman looked at them making a strange face. It wasn't the first time someone thought Eddie was crazy since they were Venom. The Other would have wanted to be able to come out in the middle of the premises and show them that Eddie was better than all of them.

The woman didn’t take long to serve them a huge chocolate milkshake, two plates of pancakes with caramel syrup, a mountain of crispy bacon accompanied by scrambled eggs and some golden french fries. The Other stole one of the pancakes and ate it with relish.

"You’ll like New York" Eddie babbled chewing a piece of bacon. “It’s the city with the most gunshot wounds in the world. Many bad people to eat.”

**"We’ll like New York because we’ll be together, Eddie."**


	17. Chapter 17

One thousand seven hundred thirty-six dollars and forty-two cents. That was all they had left. He hoped they had gotten much more for the motorcycle but need had left them in a bad position to negotiate. His intention had also been to sell his cellphone but he had not been able to get rid of it. Eddie looked at the SIM card cut into pieces in the palm of his hand. He wasn't sure it was going to be enough, but he wasn't going to make things easy for anyone who was trying to keep track of them. Nothing mattered more than protecting Vee.

**"We matter, Eddie."** Vee had been strangely quiet while Eddie negotiated a price for the motorcycle.

"We could do some sightseeing before catching the bus." Eddie walked away from the pawnshop with his hands in his pockets. Vee wrapped him up in a black leather jacket.

**"L.A. is ugly"** the symbiote complained watching the bland buildings that surrounded them.

"We're not in the tourist area," Eddie laughed. "It's as ugly as any other city."

**"We can do some sightseeing"** Vee allowed not too convinced.

***

Its opinion about L.A. hadn’t changed much, but Eddie seemed happy to walk through its streets despite the horrible heat of the midday sun. Luckily, people seemed to ignore them every time Eddie made a comment out loud.

"Vee?" He asked the fourth time that the Other had not responded to any of his comments. “Are you alright?”

**"Tired"** it growled not wanting to argue. The Other remembered Eddie's addictive taste when he was congratulated for a job well done and it didn’t resemble the strange cloying taste that seemed to seize all its interactions with its guest since they left San Francisco.  **"We understand more than you think."**

Eddie stopped dead.

"Watch where you're going!" A woman behind them shouted as she crashed into their back. "Damn dumbfuck." She whispered dodging and going on her way. The Other couldn’t help letting some of its tentacles escape, no one insulted its host.

"Vee" Eddie whispered, grabbing it in fright. "What do you think you’re doing?"

**"She insulted us"** The Other sank again in shame. It hated being the cause of its host's anxiety.  **"We hate that they don't know you're ours."** The Other wrapped the ring on Eddie’s finger, making it look like obsidian.

"You're not the only one." Eddie dropped into a bench watching the walking couples holding hands. The Other couldn’t help noticing the longing in his host. As much as it wanted things to be different, the Other was not human.


	18. Chapter 18

The motel room seemed anchored in the seventies, with its worn carpet floor and the suffocating ocher and brown wallpaper. The spring mattress creaked every time Eddie moved on the bed. With the curtains drawn, hiding them from the outside world, all the light they had was the one emitted by the bedside lamp. Vee was watching Big Bang Theory on the small tube television, his shapeless mass resting on his lap.

Vee had always looked so sure of himself. Eddie took him in his arms, pressing him against his chest. The guilt was seizing him to the point of leaving him breathless. No matter what he did, in the end he always ruined what mattered most to him.

**“That's not true”** the shapeless mass changed, pouncing on him with Vee’s most humanoid form. His opaline eyes seemed to want to devour him. The symbiote's arms surrounded him, caging him against the wall. Vee occupied his entire field of vision.  **"You pretend everything's fine, but we’re in your head. Even when you lie to yourself we can see the truth.”** His deep voice rumbled in the room and vibrated between Eddie's lungs.

Eddie noticed himself faint. His gaze couldn’t help following Vee's tongue swaying and imagining what it should be like to feel it going through all the recesses of his body. His whole body seemed to burn under the scrutiny of his symbiote. His excitement had to be like a beacon on his entire body. He noticed his heavy breathing. With Vee's face so close, he was only able to think about the kiss they had shared. He was so hard it was almost painful.

“But you think I want you to be human” his hands trembled as he drew with his fingers the outline of that unique face. “We are only cowardly and insignificant beings. There's nothing good”

**“Carl is the coward and insignificant. Stop repeating his words.”** Eddie felt Vee's claws digging into his shoulder.  **“Eddie is perfect. Eddie is ours.”**

Eddie just wanted to lose himself in the sensation of his body fusing with Vee's. Maybe Eddie wasn't perfect, but they were. Venom was. Inside everything seemed to be on the verge of collapse. Anxiety and excitement seemed to blend into a single feeling that dragged him in opposite directions.

**"Without Eddie, we're not Venom"** Vee licked his own teeth before catching Eddie's lips in a kiss. Eddie couldn’t move, he was at the mercy of the symbiote. Vee's tongue invaded him relentlessly, sliding to the bottom of his throat. Eddie's hands gripped desperately behind Vee's back as if he were a shipwrecked drifter. He struggled to catch air but Vee's invasion was so complete that it was impossible. He noticed his vision blurring. He was convinced that he was about to lose consciousness. Tears slid down his cheeks unable to reconcile all the contradictory signals that his body sent him.

**"We'll be whatever you want, Eddie."** Vee's voice whispered inside his mind. His hands relaxed and with them the tension throughout his body disappeared. Eddie was like a ship gliding through the waves. No matter what happened, Vee was going to keep him safe. The black tendrils melted with his thighs completely covering them. One of the tentacles curled around his erection. A chill went through him like an electric spark. Vee was everywhere. He was convinced that he could feel him purring against his chest, enjoying himself and not just a mere spectator. His mind went blank when he reached the zenith. The arms that held him against the wall were undone in a tangle of filaments that completely wrapped him. Silent tears burst into an uncontrollable sob.

**"You are our best part, Vee"** he murmured, hugging himself with the grip of his symbiote before falling asleep.


	19. Chapter 19

“You have a new message. Message number one, received today at twenty-three hours twenty-five minutes.” the voice of the answering machine gave way to the noise of people laughing and cars in the background.

"Hello Annie." Eddie was silent for a few seconds. "I was hoping to talk to you, but I don't know when we’ll get a new opportunity to call so... I'm sorry I didn’t call sooner but things have been somewhat hectic these last few days. My Darling says hi. We miss you but we couldn't stay in San Francisco. At the moment it looks like they’ve lost track of us but it isn’t safe to stay too long in the same place. I never thought I'd be glad to know how to survive on the streets. I don't know how long I haven't been able to take a shower.” Eddie chuckled. “God, I stink. Say hi to Dan.

***

You have a new message. Message number two, received today at eighteen hours forty-six minutes” the voice of the answering machine fell silent.

“Anne, we had to do it. They were trying to keep us apart and…” the voice fell apart. Eddie sounded on the brink of a panic attack. “We had to protect ourselves. Anne I'm sorry”

The call ended.

"Eddie?" Anne shouted desperately forgetting for a second that it was just a message on her answering machine.

“There are no more messages. To listen to the message again press zero. To delete it, press one. To conserve it, press 2” the woman was talking ignoring the knot in Anne's stomach. Her hand went numb, blood unable to reach the ends of his fingers by the force with which she clenched the device in her fist.


	20. Before the First Call

Eddie was convinced that he would end up catching torticollis sleeping with his head against the window. The bus engine made the glass tremble and gave him a headache. He was tired of seeing how all the cars passed them.

**“The man on the corner has been following us since we changed buses in San Bernardino.”** Vee whispered inside his head.

"Do you think he works for the same ones who raided our apartment?" Eddie watched him through the reflection in the window. He had been talking on the phone for a while.

**"Could be. Although there may be other people who could want to kill us.”** Eddie felt Vee's sly smile when he thought about the brains he could eat.

"We don't need any more problems!" Eddie snapped trying to keep his voice in a whisper. “We could have died.”

The man hung up the phone and stared at them. He knew they had noticed he was following them. Eddie couldn't help getting all his body hair bristling when he saw the sadistic smile drawing on that stranger's face.

***

Eddie got up from his seat, hanging his backpack on his shoulder. He wasn’t the only one who got off the bus in Denver. Eddie greeted the stranger with a slight nod and buried his hands in his pockets. He took a deep breath, feeling on edge. The man sat there. Maybe it was just his paranoia making him see threats where there were none.

Eddie was still standing at the bus station when the vehicle started again, the engine noise sounded like an old asthmatic. The bus had disappeared at the end of the street when Eddie sat on a bench, exhausted. Everything was too strange.

"I think I'm going crazy," he sighed, still looking at his hands.

**"It's not true"** Vee's viscous mass fiddled between his fingers.  **“We don’t like him either. We could have had a snack.”**

"And let a trail of the dead and missing?" Eddie growled away from the bus station.

**“Then we want some M &M’s”** Vee dragged him inside a 24h Supermarket.

"Sometimes I think you're just a huge stomach" Eddie muttered in exasperation. It was still strange when Vee controlled his body without them being Venom but he couldn’t avoid the affection that seized him knowing those little gestures were born from trust in the bond that connected them.

***

Eddie tried on the glasses, aviator with a mirror effect. Maybe they weren't a bad idea. He left them at the counter with the XXL bag of M&M’s and a couple of tuna vegetable sandwiches. He had no idea how they were going to get to New York but he’d think of something.

**"You lack the leather jacket"** Vee wrapped him as he had done the day they met with his father.

Eddie couldn't help panicking the second he took to realize that they were completely alone in the middle of the street.

**"It's okay like that?"** Vee asked hesitantly.

"Why wouldn't it be fine?" Eddie stroked his arm, where Vee shone in jet black.

***

His boots were covered with the argillaceous sand that rose at every step. On the outskirts of Denver it was as if the world had forgotten what civilization was. With the backpack chafing against his shoulders and the half-empty water bottle, it was like landing in the world of Fallout.

Anne should be worried and the message  _ "this phone is off or out of coverage" _ should not help to reassure her. If he was in Anne's place, he was convinced that he would have broken a few phones in desperation.

**"Call her"** Vee growled.

"It's very easy to say when it isn’t going to be your balls she cuts" Eddie raised his hands in exasperation.

**"She’ll do it even if you don't call her"** The symbiote replied amused.


	21. Chapter 21

Eddie preferred crowded streets, where they could be anonymous. Vee seemed to have fallen in love with the lights on the billboards. Times Square had become, without much effort, his favorite place. Maybe one day they could even afford to buy tickets for a play, even though that day seemed so far away.

Eddie hadn't even dared try to rent a room at some seedy motel. At night they slept in lonely and damp alleys, between cardboard boxes and the smell of garbage. It wasn’t the first time he survived without a place to drop dead and at least this time he wasn’t alone.

Eddie was dozing, sheltered from the air current behind a dumpster. He was convinced that his clothes had stunk for days but he barely noticed the smell. Misery was a good teacher when it came to losing qualm.

**"We have company"** Vee whispered, waking Eddie up. The symbiote seemed to vibrate under his skin.  **"They smell like gunpowder and blood."** The first strands began to form around him. They moved like they were noticing the fragances in the air.

Before he could react, Eddie found himself lying on the ground. The shots echoed in the dark alley. Vee surrounded him with his mass, their shark smile letting out an infinite tongue. A new flurry of bullets arced across their chest and pierced their shoulders and legs.

**"If you insist on becoming our breakfast"** Venom licked their lips before leaping up and landing behind the men in black who were trying to close the mouth of the alley.  **"You should have left us alone"** Venom lifted one of the men as if he weighed absolutely nothing and broke him in two. Blood splattered on the brick wall. Eddie could feel the drops sliding against their cheek, warm to the touch. Venom licked their lips, savoring the metallic taste against their tongue. Eddie could hear the throbbing of the dozen men around them, sped up by fear and lost in the noise of bursts of bullets.

"We have to go" Eddie noted how the bloodlust made them lose sight of the world. "We have to go now," he insisted, trying not to lose the battle against the hunger that seemed to want to drive them crazy. "Vee! We have to go now! ”

Those people had stolen their lives but they could at least satisfy their hunger. The scream pierced the alley like a freshly sharpened dagger. The sound stabbed into their heads, the excruciating pain blinding them completely. The blast wave knocked them all to the ground and dragged rubble with it.

Eddie hit his head against the reddish brick wall.

"We are not murderers" Eddie's vision was still blurred when the figure of a woman was drawn against the light in the mouth of the alley. Her raised hand seemed to be the only thing keeping them safe for the moment.

"Speak for you" another guy had entered the alley carrying a sniper rifle on his shoulder. Eddie was convinced that he had a bullseye on his forehead.

Eddie noticed the blood running down his forehead, where some rubble had cut him. It was still bleeding.

"Vee?" He whispered trying to feel the symbiote under his skin. With effort, he sat up. One of his assailant's pistols had ended up abandoned beside him. His head kept spinning and he wanted to vomit.

"I would stay where you are" the woman looked at him condescendingly. "We only want the alien. You don't have to be more involved.”

Vee's inert mass looked like a puddle of grease in the middle of the alley at the woman's feet, the first rays of dawn drawing a halo around her blond hair almost bordering on the absolute white.

"I can't do what you ask," Eddie straightened, hiding the gun in his pants and raising his hands in surrender. "I can't let you take him." He took a deep breath and took a step forward.

"You’ve seen what it just did." The woman seemed reluctant to get closer to the symbiote.

"Stop playing games" the man with the bullseye on his head raised his rifle. Eddie felt his blood run cold.

“Bullseye! Stop!”

It was as if the world had become silent. The sound of silence was like a high pitched beep. Eddie covered his ears. The alley broke out in chaos. The woman's voice had made him deaf. Eddie didn't even know if Vee was still alive. His body was still motionless on the ground. It looked like the worst of the impact had been taken by the madman of the bullseye.

Eddie crawled up praying his worst nightmare hadn't come true.

"Vee" he reached out "Vee..." Eddie pleaded, protecting the black slime in his arms.

It was as if time had stopped. At any moment he could feel a bullet piercing the nape of his neck but the only thing that mattered was to get Vee as far as he could from there. Eddie started running, paying no attention to anything around him. He felt his heart explode against his chest. He was sure he was going to end up spitting it out of his mouth.

He ran to the middle of the street. The car slowed down a few inches.

He noticed the looks of the people sticking into him like needles. The grungy sweatshirt was stained with blood, even his hands, his face. Dried blood caked his hair against his forehead. The woman advanced slowly, a smile drawn on her lips.

Eddie aimed the gun.

"He's not a monster," his hands trembled. He had never pointed a gun at anyone before. His finger was on the trigger, he just had to squeeze it. "He can learn like us. He knows the difference between right and wrong. You can't take him away.” Eddie squeezed the symbiote's formless mass with even more force against his chest.

"It cut a man in half" the woman looked at him, advancing through the crowd that watched them. “I don't know you can see something good in a being capable of doing something like that”

"All we wanted was to live in peace!" Eddie yelled. The shot rang out above the noise of the cars. People's screams pierced his brain. He didn't remember pulling the trigger, but blood stained the woman's shirt. Eddie had shot her.

He threw the weapon on the ground, horrified. The woman collapsed, unconscious. He had to do it. She was going to take Vee away. She was going to take Vee away and Eddie couldn't allow it. He couldn't let her take his most beloved being in this world. In his arms, Vee still didn’t react. A new shot rang out on the street. The people fled in an onslaught. The madman of the bullseye was advancing, the rifle ready to fire again. Eddie recognized the sadistic smile from the man on the bus. Knowing he wasn't going to be as lucky twice, Eddie disappeared into the crowd.


	22. Chapter 22

The hotel receptionist eyed him suspiciously. His appearance wasn’t the usual among their customers, but although the clothes were second-hand, they were clean and didn’t smell musty. Eddie took six hundred dollars from his pocket. They didn't have much more left, but if there was nowhere they could be safe, at least they were going to enjoy every last penny.

"Have a good stay" the girl replied politely.

Eddie didn't bother answering, taking the room card from the counter and slipping his bag over his shoulder. He still remembered where the elevators were from the last time he had been there with Anne.

**"I don't like it"** Vee's voice grumbled in his head.

"What?" Eddie whispered, not sure what Vee was referring to.

**"The woman. She looked at us like she was better than us”** the symbiote complained indignantly.

"My looks don't help much." Eddie shrugged and entered the elevator.

It took the bellboy a second to react before greeting him and hitting the button that would lead them upstairs.

Eddie took a deep breath as soon as he closed the bedroom door and dropped the bag that had accompanied them from San Francisco. He felt so tired and tremendously old. Vee ran his body uneasy. The separation had been traumatic for the two of them but at least they were back together.

The jet strands emerged from his arms, curious about their surroundings. Vee controlled him for a moment, approaching the window. The sunset shone between the buildings and drew a spectacular panoramic view of the city. Eddie still didn't feel comfortable near the window but the vertigo mixed with the amazement that radiated from the symbiote, completely in love with the image in front of them.

"I thought you would like the view and there is no risk that a plane will make us fall into the void" Eddie laughed nervously at the memory.

Like a sinuous serpent, Vee coiled around his arm, letting his head rest on Eddie's shoulder. His huge opalescent eyes fixed on the landscape beyond the window.

**"Thanks, Eddie."** Vee purred happily.

Eddie dropped onto the bed, the mattress felt soft and the sheets, silky under the palms of his hands. Unhurriedly, he undressed, the carpet warm under his feet. He felt the tickle against his belly, against his thighs, and on his back. Vee caressed his body, painting every corner of a shiny jet. Eddie was lost in thought, running the reflections of the last rays of the sun on his body. It was beautiful.

"You're welcome" he whispered, not wanting to disturb the silence. Shrouded in the heat of his symbiote, Eddie fell asleep, his clothes left on the floor.

  
  


***

In the darkness of the room, the city lights looked like mosaic tiles. The rhythmic breathing of its host was all that could be heard in the room. Clinging to Eddie, the Other thought. Sometimes the man terrified it but the Other didn’t regret anything. The door opened with an almost imperceptible creak and closed again with a slight click. The footsteps approached silently.

The other wrapped Eddie completely, his face hidden behind a mask full of sharp teeth.

**"Why are you here?"** Venom's voice boomed furiously.

Even in the dark, Venom could see the woman clearly, her fuchsia lock falling on her forehead. The woman stopped, arms raised and palms outstretched, putting herself in a false disadvantage. Inside, Eddie woke up puzzled.

"Two months ago, a certain Carl Brock filed a complaint that no one would have taken seriously without knowing anything about the Life Foundation experiments." The woman spoke without flinching from the tongue that dripped saliva leaving a puddle on the carpet.

Inside, Eddie shuddered at the sound of his father's name. The Other didn’t know if it was doing the right thing, but it let Eddie regain control. Venom's menacing size disappeared. Their hands, still glossy black, were no longer claws.

"According to the complaint, a monster was controlling his son and had attacked him in his own home." The woman continued.

The Other noticed the hysterical laughter forming in his host's chest and consuming him entirely. All Eddie had wanted was to help Carl and his father had stolen everything from him again.

**"The only monster here is Carl Brock"** the Other's voice reverberated on Eddie's lips.  **"We should have devoured him when we had a chance"** growled, slimy tentacles forming its Lovecraftian face.

The Other hated Carl. It hated him. It hated how insignificant it made Eddie feel. Eddie was theirs. Theirs and no one else's.

"Why didn't you?" The woman looked at it in surprise, lowering her hands.

**"Eddie asked us not to. We would never do anything that could harm Eddie.”** The Other couldn't help but feel the shame that had eaten it away that day. Eddie's screams and terror. The Other restrained the urge to curl up into the guts of his host. Last time, hiding hadn't done them any good.

"We just want to be left alone." Eddie seemed to have calmed down a bit. Exhausted, he sat up in bed, his gaze lost on his toes.

The Other was still aware of the woman's movements, still suspicious of her intentions. Before the Other could react, the woman tossed them an envelope. The symbiote captured it with one of its tentacles, watching it as if it were a bomb about to explode.

Eddie stole the envelope from him. Inside, there was a new ID card and a social security number, a credit card with some money and the name Eddie Sym. Eddie looked up without understanding what he was seeing.

"I thought you would like that name" the woman shrugged.

"Why are you helping us?" Eddie eyed her suspiciously, the false documentation between his fingers.

“Something you said made me think. You said he is learning and everyone deserves a chance, it doesn't matter if he is not human. So well…” Melissa shrugged.

“And that’s all? Until? Everything has a price” the Other felt Eddie's heart about to explode against their chest.

"You'll have to trust me" the woman smiled, brushing the pink strand away from her face before turning around.

"What's your name?" Eddie asked, realizing he didn't know.

"Melissa." The woman turned one last time before disappearing, closing the door behind her. "Goodbye, Eddie."


	23. Chapter 23

Sitting on a bench in Central Park, wearing aviator glasses and the Watchmen cap Vee had insisted on buying at a gas station, Eddie looked around enjoying the moment. Dying was a good way to put things in perspective. It had all been a ruse, but seeing the photo of his alleged corpse in some of the most yellowish media had been strange to say the least. The thought of doing nothing weighed heavily on his stomach. A man had appeared half charred and his face disfigured, but Eddie preferred not to think about where Melissa had gotten his doppelganger. The only thing that mattered was that they were finally free.

"Maybe we could buy a new bike" he said, rising from the bench, his hands in the pockets of his jacket. "Follow Route 66, see Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon."

**"You want to keep running away"** Vee whispered inside his head, his jet strands hugging him under his clothes.

"No!" He exclaimed. "No, it's just that there's so much we could see. The world has wonderful places and”

**"Running away won’t save you from yourself."** Vee interrupted him, hir tentacles coiling in his arms.  **“It doesn't matter how much we run, Carl's shadow will follow us. We won’t be free.”**

"Now you're a psychologist?" Eddie huffed annoyed. “It's not that easy, Vee.”

**"You're not even going to try! You tried to commit suicide. SUI-CI-DE”** the voice boomed in his head like thunder in a violent storm.  **"We remember the taste of your emotions that day."**

"Hey, Vee" Eddie muttered, needing to hug his symbiote, "I'm not going to do anything stupid. Nothing will happen, I don’t”

**"But it never disappears. The aftertaste is still there.”** Vee enveloped him completely, leaving only his face exposed.

Eddie stopped in the middle of the dirt road around the lake. Vee was scared. His symbiote was really scared. He took a deep breath trying to find the taste of his anxiety. It was strange to be able to notice it on his palate.

"D-dan," Eddie stuttered. It had been so many years of denying that he had a problem that he didn't dare say it out loud. "After the panic attack ... Dan thought maybe I needed help. There are people”

**"A psychologist, Eddie"** Vee purred, raising all the hair on his body.  **"You will not be alone. You're never alone"**

"We are Venom" Eddie chuckled, stroking the black skin under his belly.

**“And if it goes wrong, we can always eat him. Brains help with your depression”**

Eddie couldn't help but laugh out loud without caring about the people around him.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Shadows of our past](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24478774) by [Lost_In_Translation (Liarian)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liarian/pseuds/Lost_In_Translation)




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